Diary of a New York Waiter

Finally! Josh is back with his latest episode at Fiorello's. For a while I was getting nervous -- he was actually enjoying his work there. I missed the jaded waiter Josh from last summer, who would come to my apartment and drink bottles of wine with me and we'd complain about his jobs. But thanks to the magic of New York restaurant business, the honeymoon period at Fiorello's is over.


I'm month-and-a-half back in at Fiorello's and things have been wonderful. Oddly, the transition from caring for orphans in Ghana to catering to Upper-West New Yorkers was not as horrible as I expected it to be. Yet two days ago, the tides changed and I am back to sadly report that I'm not a happy Fiorello's waiter anymore. Here's the story:

It is the end of my shift and my least favorite manager, Jason, asks speak to me. "Re-ally..." I can't help but be sarcastic. His response was a very tight-lipped, "Yeah, so about last night. I had a lot of complaints." I sat down in the banquet room to think about the previous night. Oddly, aside from a few generally unhappy foreigners (why are they always so unhappy?...especially the Europeans…their exchange rate should leave them with a permanent smile and me with an automatic 20% gratuity), I couldn't recall any disasters. I'd been "allowed" to serve one of our V.I.P. couples, The Solomons (whose mere presence merits a capital "T" because they are that freakin' special). Mrs. Solomon's name is "Cookie." And no, that's not a pet name.

Among their many expectations that are to be met without their asking is the way they want their "complementary" bread: we are to lightly toast a basket of Tuscan Italian white bread (which we don't serve to tables -- ever) and serve it with aged balsamic vinegar (also never served to tables), a bowl of grated parmesan, and butter. Mr. Solomon likes to start with a Bloody Mary -- in a large white wine glass -- with extra horseradish. Later, he moves on to a Pinot Grigio served from a quartino (a small quarter-liter decanter) into yet another large white wine glass, and whatever wine remains in the quartino is to be iced in a coffee pitcher with ice water in it. Cookie has a Lilet on ice in a large white wine glass with an orange slice. Oh, and she needs to sit on a stack of unfolded napkins. The Solomon's are a pain, but they're nothing the average Fiorello's waiter can't handle.

So what could possibly go wrong? Apparently, Cookie flagged Jason down to let him know that when their entrees were served, they had not been given fresh silverware. Alas, the fact that the busser literally arrived less than five seconds after the entrees were dropped didn't seem to qualify as "fresh" enough. This was only a minor compliant, because if Cookie really cared, there'd have been a scene. Even though I may have never waited on The Solomons, I've had multiple guest appearances in their weekly Fiorello's saga; Cookie gets her kicks out of pointing out the little things. Jason felt the need to act as if "my" blunder had nearly ended the world. "I DON'T KNOW IF THEY'RE GOING TO CALL AND COMPLAIN TO CORPORATE!" was the climax of his pseudo-gay (we're all wondering), pathetic tirade. I have a feeling that laughing in his face didn't really help my chances of getting on his good side. Even so, Mr. Solomon tipped me $70 on a $250 check, so clearly I was a success, absentee silverware and all!

My next major faut-pas required a hostess to find me in order to tell me that a table had been waiting for their check for ten minutes. Let me set the scene so you understand why a table flagging a hostess for their check should not have been a memorable event that night. I was working in the café, the outdoor part of the restaurant, and the average temperature that day had been 91* Fahrenheit. I had an eleven-table section, which did not have a single empty table from 6:00pm until 12:00am closing. Of these eleven tables, one was The Solomons'. I was one of the few servers who was not screaming, running or crying. When the hostess found me amidst the chaos, I was in the middle of making four Shirley Temples for a Southern family, all of whom had annoyingly blonde hair, who later complained about the exorbitant cost of $3.95 for a soda even after I gave them free refills. Any guesses on the percent gratuity on that check?... Lower... No lower... Probably still lower. I calmly handed the hostess my card and said, "Go to Ula and ask her to run the check for me." (Ula is our new manager who hates girls and gays but by some glitch loves me so I love her too.) This is a completely acceptable practice at Fiorello's. They weed us every night because they never seat in rotation and so if you need a few checks run, it is no problem. (For you non-restaurant people, that last sentence essentially meant that they send all of us into furies by sitting our entire sections at once instead of seating one table in each of the servers' sections before sitting the same server again). That is something they WILL help us with. It is not something that would normally lead to a sit-down reaming session. Jason just hates me. And so, naturally, I hate him too.

But the night wasn't completely bad: I waited on Susan Taylor, the Editorial Director at Essence magazine. She brought me this month's issue, the cover of which reads, "Black Men Want to Meet You" and features these three men. She handed it to me and said, "I knew you'd want one baby." LOVE HER. So I walked to my favorite new wine place, Bacchus (on 71st & Broadway), bought a bottle of Jean-Luc Colombo's Viognier and drank myself into a better mood in my closet-sized, very air-conditioned room while watching Amistad. Better mood actually just meant upset for better reasons.